


Goodbye To A World

by FlowerChiild



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Deep space, F/M, Loneliness, Major character death - Freeform, Oneshot, Originally a Oneshot, Other, Story background revealed through flashbacks mostly, but it isnt really gory, invader zim - Freeform, lowkey a slice of life kind of thing, vague mentions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-04-24 00:46:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 14,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14344434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlowerChiild/pseuds/FlowerChiild
Summary: Everything was gone. In the end, the only thing they had to hold onto was each other.





	1. Chapter 1

Lifeless steel. Cyan blue ghosts from empty metal sockets. Disengaged systems - ripped wires, scratched disks, wiped memory drives. 

Shut down. 

If he were human, he deemed that this would be an appropriate moment in which he would shed tears. Instead, he stared silently down at the empty husk of a robot that laid sprawled out on the floor, a clawed appendage now non-functioning grazing the tip of his boots. Irkens typically did not bother impacting on their SIR units, but GIR was no ordinary SIR unit. A machine, yes, but a machine that seemed so lifelike, he sometimes forgot it was a machine in the first place. 

GIR was an inorganic combination of technology. He felt no true fear, no true conscious or pain. It had been a programmed personality, a facade for the lonely. And Zim had been lonely. They had all felt lonely. 

Gaz wept. This was rare for her. She was still human, though, he told himself, so he let her press her face into the chest of his uniform and sat still as he felt her tears soak through and burn his skin. She sat there for hours, retreating as far back from reality as she could, trying to mold herself into Zim's side, shaking with quiet cries. He wondered if her brother would have comforted her, like this, despite the fact that she was sharing her sorrows with the enemy. He wondered if Dib had at least that much empathy left in him. 

Their ship floated aimlessly in empty space. If one looked hard enough, they could see distant stars from behind the glass windows of the ship. As far as the two of them were concerned, this was the most alone the two of them were going to get - neither human nor Irken transmitters could reach out this far. The two of them sat, in the far corner of the ship, holding on to each other. It was all either of them had left - the ship, their supplies, and themselves. 

"Energy levels depleting." The computerized voice of the ship echoed in the small space. 

They had enough regeneration gel and supplies to last them for another couple months. They could only hope they got caught in another solid planet's orbit before then, hopefully a deserted one, so that they could start fresh. 

Among all the life in the universe, they were alone.


	2. Chapter 2

__

_"Dib! Stop it, Dib!" Her throat ached when she screamed, her voice felt raw. "He isn't hurting anybody it! Don't hurt him! Dib!"_

_Blurred silhouettes, blended colors of white, gray, and black - in the middle of it, green and red, bobbing up and down and trying to lurch forward in her direction. Green and red being dragged away, kicking and screaming and incapacitated, without weapons. Without dignity. She promised to get him back. She promised both him and herself, as she kneeled on the hot concrete, her arms handcuffed behind her back, she'd blow those motherfuckers to smithereens and she'd keep them both safe. She'd keep him safe._

_Her brother preached for the good of science, so much like her father, so uncaring for the impact he had on other people's lives. So, so much like her father._

_He deserved to be six feet under like her father, then, too._

_His rescue had resulted in blood on her hands. Who it belonged to, she didn't care. It was his blood that mattered to her, only his. The front of her shirt was stained juniper as she struggled to drag him into the Voot Cruiser, trying hard to make it both quick and painless for him. On all sides of her, gunshots and shouting. Accusations of treason to mankind._

_She watched the flames tear through the building as they ascended into the air. By the time they were well into the atmosphere, she saw the head of a mushroom cloud, knowing full well her brother must've been in the center of it.  
_

The dusty terrain stained her hands orange, but she liked that color because it meant that she was safe. If it kept him safe, she'd coat herself in it. Her fingernails caked in dirt as she dug through the hard ground - it was mostly rocks. She had to keep digging, Zim had told her. He had picked up some water a couple feet down in this particular area on his monitors. She didn't need his help. She was the one who needed water to survive, not him, and he'd probably burn himself trying to do this himself. He was constructing some sort of metal from the natural resources they had acquired. To build a camp, he said. They were going to be okay, he said. 

The planet was wiped clean of civilization, he told her honestly. It had just been them, but they'd help create a new world. A new foundation. 

Her crafted shovel clanged noisily against the loose rock. She dug, dug, dug, until liquid seeped through the dirt. Gaz moved the remaining rocks and soil aside, desperate under the ruthless suns of the planet. Her hands shook as they descended in the new, shallow pool. Her laughter erupted and bounced off of the desert plains. Zim's antennae twitched at the sound of it, and turned to watch her from afar. 

He likened her to a being beyond their plane of existence. Immediately, she removed all her clothing, whooping excitedly as she gave herself a make-shift bath. He watched her, the only human being within a couple thousand light years, dance nude in the ankle-deep water, slurping it from her cupped hands and smiling broadly. Gaz never smiled much. He had never seen her nude before - in fact, she was the first live specimen of human he'd ever seen nude - and he decided that human anatomy, or at least her's in particular, was something far beyond inferior. 

Her head turned in his direction. The wet ends of her hair stuck to her cheeks and chin as she moved her head to look at him. Zim had seen many things during his life, and never had he deemed something beautiful, since Irkens didn't typically look for beauty in anything. But her small breasts and wet skin in the bronze light of the duo of suns made her look beautiful to him then, and he decided that she was the most beautiful thing in the observable universe. 

 

Gaz waded by the puddle all day. He counted the hours of the suns' shine, and concluded it was a respective thirty-five hours of daylight in comparison to Earth's twenty-four. Soon, he'd try and construct small satellites he could maybe send into orbit in order to quickly calculate a full rotation around the sun. He worried about seasonal changes, if the planet had any. The planet was uncharted - it didn't even show up on his ship's celestial map - and they were stranded with no safety gear. An unexpected temperature drop was all it took to do them in. 

He observed four moons when the suns set. Gaz tended to an artificial fire in the middle of their temporary camp. He'd erect a proper base once he had obtained the full list of materials. 

"We've got to figure out a food source," she murmured, "you know, so when our's runs out, we have something to fall back on. I can breathe okay here. I mean, it's a little harder, but that means the atmosphere is similar to earth. There's water, too. Do you think we could find plant life?" 

"I shall send out a probe when the suns rise." He responded to her. "Perhaps you are right, Gaz. Even so, if we fail to find a source of organic life here, we can always search another planet for compatible growth for transport - once the ship is repaired, that is."  
"Once the ship is repaired," Gaz echoed. 

They spent the rest of that evening working on building new materials. Gaz wasn't very good at reading Irken, but the trip in space had been a few months, so she was able to learn the basics of Zim's language. With this, she helped him with some of the construction, as well as observing him in hopes of learning some tricks for herself in the future. Irkens didn't sleep, she remembered, so she watched him focus almost entirely on the fine details of electric work well into the night, until her own eyelids began to weigh down on her. She fell asleep eventually on a large cot that mimicked a bed, dreaming once again of the life she left behind.


	3. Chapter 3

"Do you ever miss it, Zim?" She asked him suddenly the next day. Gaz looked up to meet his eyes, brown shining gems with traces of purple undertones that seemed to sink into her eye sockets. The skin around them was dark - she hadn't slept very much that night. "Being an invader." 

_"You're a defect, Zim," jarred what had been his idols on screen. Red held a hardened gaze with him over the monitor, "give up. We sent you to Earth to die. You actually finding civilization was a mistake."_

_"My - my Tallests, please, what are -"_

_"Oh, Zim!" Cried Purple, splaying a hand over his eyes in frustration. "It was all a ruse! You were never considered an invader!"_  
_"A ruse," Zim parroted hollowly, "a defect."_  
_"You were the result of a malfunction within the control brains," Red continued, "do you know why, Zim?"  
_ _"A malfunction," He stared at the monitor which proudly displayed the Irken Tallests. He had looked up to them, he had thought his efforts were noticed. "Why?"_

__

____

__

__

_Modern Irkens were mass produced straight from the embryo. Assets like the need for reproduction, heightened awareness of emotion, and respect for anything aside from the Empire was deemed a threat to the welfare of their society. They were bred to mimic the best type of soldier, and the best type of soldier universally excepted had always been machines. Irk thrived on conquest. It had come a long way from the simple society it once was._

_Something within the Control Brains executed Zim's very creation incorrectly. He was, by all means, a mistake, and thus considered a danger to the Empire. And he had never even known. His transmission with the Tallests had cut itself off abruptly. He wasn't sure the cause, but he didn't move to investigate. Instead, he stood in his empty base, alone, in the shadow of the salt and pepper monitor display._

_Days later, he simply handed a folder to Dib Membrane. Dib had opened it to find translated contents that contained everything from Irken history to the weak points of the Massive._

_Zim decided that he would become a true threat to the Empire, and not just the joke they made him out to be.  
_

 

"No." Was his quiet response. "I do not miss being a part of the Empire's puppetry." 

They spent a large portion of their day in the heat of the two suns, hunting for materials and forging together scraps of metal. It left Gaz's limbs feeling like jelly, but she knew Zim hardly felt the strain in his muscles. Despite being disbanded from the Empire, Zim was still an Irken, and Irkens were known universally to have an absurdly high tolerance and rapid adaptability. This made her feel almost like a burden, seeing as a human could only do so much. Gaz being Gaz, however, refused to show it. 

During nights when they had put aside their building materials, the two of them often laid out a little ways away from the camp. Zim sat in silence, mostly, mapping out constellations on his expanding star chart. Gaz would simply revel in the sight above her - Earth had always been too polluted with light and other atmospheric plagues to see the night sky to its full extent. One of her favorite parts of their nights was the reflection of the stars on Zim's eyes, which turned nearly as black as the darkness that surrounded them. It was as if he had the whole universe in those eyes of his, and for some strange reason, they made her feel a little bit more at home on their barren planet. 

Ever since their escape from Earth, it seemed as if he had distanced himself from her. She tried to reason with herself, saying that they were both stressed and trying to cope on their own. Starting over was hard on him, too. Their limited technology could only do so much, and he was slaving over the fine details of their survival, simply because he was the only one out of the two of them that knew how to do it. Despite them being the only sentient beings on this planet, neither one of them had resumed the beginnings of intimacy they had back on Earth, before the threat of war. 

Idly, she wondered to herself if her brother was still alive. 

Zim focused almost entirely on mapping out the skies above, not even bothering to squint when it came to seeing faraway planets and star systems. The environment they had crash landed in tended to play audible tricks, and so sometimes his antennae would twitch, picking up what may have seemed like distant talking, drawing him out of his work. He knew Gaz heard it sometimes, too, because she would, at random instances, whip her head in any given direction, tense and ready to fight, before sighing and relaxing again. He cast a sideways glance at her, watching her gaze focus on nothing in particular, as the planet's moons shone down on her. The natural light made it seem like she was glowing. Zim was tempted to run his hand through her hair. 

Instead, he did nothing, and so they sat underneath the enormous expanse of night sky, just two little dots among the chaos of everything else.


	4. Chapter 4

_He remembered the fear in their eyes - two great leaders, so idolized by their empire, forced to their knees in front of a defect. Zim remembered how his finger itched on the trigger of his blaster, the aim right in between Red's eyes. Purple's nervous and pale face, staring straight ahead._

_They thought they were going to die._

_They should've died. They should've been torn apart by his claws, hung at the head of the massive. Their dead bodies should have been put in front of the telecom and he should have sent a transmission back to Irk. A true Irken invader would have had no mercy against his enemies, but Zim had already had his revenge. He tore two of the greatest leaders in the galaxy from their pedestals, forced them into submission under the power of somebody they deemed as unworthy. Zim had brought out the desperation and fear, the embarrassment of falling to somebody like him. He didn't have to kill them - no, their pride was already long dead._

_He took the heel of his boot and kicked Red in the face, sending the Tallest crumbling to the floor. He had finally gained the upper hand, and would force them to live with the fact that they had been defeated so easily._

Zim had finished the probe that served to search the planet for plant life. He wasn't sure if either of them would be able to even eat anything this planet grew, but it made Gaz relax a little, and so he allowed her to be the one to activate the robot. She had been incredibly tense lately. They both were, he assumed. Anybody suddenly stranded on a lifeless planet would be. He sympathized with her, though, because she was a human out of her element, with trouble adapting as quickly to their environment as he did. She had mentioned earlier that the atmosphere had a little less oxygen than that of Earth, and thus it made it harder for her to breathe, causing her to be out of breath far quicker than she normally would have been. Overtime he knew her lungs would adapt, but her struggle was still evident, and so he worried when she tried to keep up the pace with him. 

It wasn't until a little after they had activated the probe, when Zim had found a particularly large boulder with a good amount of natural Orcadium(a universally popular element used in most spacecraft), had Gaz passed out after over-exerting herself. He actually hadn't known right away, because she was on the side opposite of him. 

"Have you had anything to drink today, Gaz?" Zim had asked, worried over her silence. She had been suffering from headaches lately, due to dehydration. "Gaz?" 

He had audibly yelped then curse in his native tongue at the sight of her laying sprawled out on the dirt, her flushed face coupled with heavy intakes of breath. At first, he thought she was genuinely dying, so he had rushed her over to the still-functioning medical bay in the Voot, his fingers shaking as he allowed for a system check to be run. He turned and watched her intently as the medical equipment took over. She was sweaty, and her face was coated with a thin layer of orange dirt. Her clothes had seen better days, and he supposed, so have his. Zim knew at this point, they'd eventually have to break orbit and head out for supplies. He wasn't exactly certain how; his ship may have been repaired for internal damages, but it was still virtually out of fuel. He was also confronted with the risk of running into allies of the Empire. The two of them would stick out anywhere like a sore thumb. Humans did not venture out of their own galactic neighborhood, and Irkens hardly ever bothered with humans in the first place. Them as a pair would certainly raise eyebrows. Still, Zim had to take into account their own survival. 

"Systems cleared," The machine beeped, "Dihydrogen Monoxide levels low, oxygen levels low." 

He peered at the monitor, and saw her imbalance was as normal as it had been since they had gotten here. She simply took her body to a limit beyond its capability. She awoke soon after, and when Zim told her what had happened, she looked into the corner, as if something was there, and bit her lip in anger. 

"I do nothing but slow you down," Gaz spat out, "I'm just a silly, little human trying to keep up alongside a superior race. God, how stupid am I?"  
"Gaz -" He began, but soon noticed her tears. "Gaz, you've been a tremendous help, you simply have to understand that your body is still adjusting."  
"My body is weak!" She cried out. "It isn't strong enough, it's nothing but an inconvenience to you! You're the only reason we're still alive." 

Zim stroked her hair, massaging her scalp with the tips of his gloved fingers. Gaz sat silently, fuming at herself. He wasn't sure what to tell her in order to make her feel better - Gaz hated sugar-coated based comfort, so anything along the lines of "you're just as capable" would've earned him a punch in the arm - so he let her stare vehemently at the floor. While one hand made itself home in her hair, the other reached across and cupped her waist, pulling her to sit on top of him. Gaz, as angry as she was, relaxed against him, still drained from her collapse earlier. He turned to just simply embracing her, tightly pressing her against him. She hummed in response, and he, for the first time since they arrived, let himself lean against her. 

They sat like that for the rest of the day, mining forgotten. Gaz cried, and he thought that if he could, he'd cry along with her, too.


	5. Chapter 5

_"I could expose him with this, Gaz!" Dib smiled broadly. "They'll know they were wrong to call me crazy! I'll expose him, track down that empire, and save the human race!"_  
_"It's been years, Dib," She rolled her eyes at him, "give it a rest already. Plus, he's clearly on our side. He gave you the info."  
"Aliens don't switch sides, Gaz," He stated this like it was common knowledge. His smile turned into a grin that, quite frankly, disturbed her a little bit. "He's a threat to man." _

__

_Her brother had absconded to his bedroom upstairs after that, still yelling about how he was going to expose 'that alien scum'. She found his methods genuinely unfair, and her breath hitched at the thought of Zim, laid out on the table, dissected like a frog. Dib was right; he had evidence now, and if he could expose Zim, then the public would go nuts. They'd believe aliens were real, and that'd be Zim's death sentence._

_Quietly, Gaz escaped from her bedroom window that night, running towards a familiar base a couple streets over with a warning._

 

Zim made it a point not to use GIR's body for parts. They both knew that the SIR unit had some very valuable pieces to it, but it felt wrong to think of using it as scrap. It had been deactivated out of necessity; despite being made from the finest Irken technology, it was still stupid, and therefor put them at high risk of being discovered. All it took was the wrong press of a button, and it could've sent a distress signal to the Massive. It also faced the threat of being trackable, and Zim didn't want to risk the two of them even for a second. So, the little robot's body stood lifeless on a shelf near Zim's main work bench. 

They both agreed that calling it "him" was just holding on to fragments of the past, and the past was the very thing they had to learn to let go of. Gaz sometimes imagined what it would be like if GIR had still been functioning. As annoying as it was, it proved itself useful on some occasions, and it might've made things easier. If not literally, it would have helped enormously in lightening the mood and keeping them motivated. 

Sometimes, she dreamed of the sound of its voice as it deactivated, the dying functionality of its voice box as it shut down in the corner of Zim's ship. 

"Do you remember how absolutely horrid Ms. Bitters used to be?" Zim chuckled one evening. "I saw an insect crawl inside the hem of her clothing, once."  
"Ugh, don't remind me," She crinkled her nose in distaste, "she was a nightmare. Dib hated her even more than I did." 

The mention of her brother's name cast a heavy blanket of silence over the camp. Zim knew he was still a subject of vulnerability for Gaz. The faraway look that appeared in her eyes as she wrung her hands only gave him further evidence of that. She was clearly remembering times before the war - before he arrived on Earth. In a way, he felt guilty for all of it, seeing as he was the root of everything. He was the reason the Empire collapsed for the first time, he was the reason Dib grew to be so full of hatred. He was the reason the war started, and the reason the two of them were trapped here in the first place. 

Angrily, he stood, exiting the camp and erupting into the night. He felt like a poison. 

Gentle hands roamed the expanse of his back. He turned slowly, facing his concerned companion, who looked up at him with sad eyes. She let her hands squeeze the muscles of his upper arms, bringing him back to rationality, before letting them graze up and rub the muscles of his neck. It calmed him considerably, and it seemed to calm her, too. She closed her eyes before she spoke.

"Dib was my brother, but he deserves what he got, whatever it was. And if he's dead, he brought that upon himself." Gaz let out a small, trembling breath. "It's okay, Zim." 

Zim felt lulled by her comfort, swaying towards her and bending only slightly to rest his forehead against hers. Her skin felt warm against his, and it reminded him of when he was back on Earth, where he had dealt with his first heatwave one summer. His hands came to hold her face, his fingers molding against her cheeks, feeling the warmth of them seep through the material of his gloves. It tingled and lingered there, dancing on his own skin. 

She had offered him this comfort back on Earth, too, before the war truly broke out. She had kissed him back then - something he was hardly familiar with, he had only seen it on those programs GIR used to watch, and some of his fellow classmates in Hi Skool did it sometimes in the hallways - and let her hands dance along the length of his body, but never more. Zim, coming from a predominantly asexual race, was both fascinated and enthralled with what she had done. He vaguely understood human mating rituals and reproduction, and decided that the only reason his body was acting the way it had been was because of the mistake in his DNA. At the time, it seemed to be more of a blessing than a mistake, however. 

They had shared private, tender moments, which had been rudely put off when it came to their opportunity to escape. The time spent on the ship, and currently the last month or two spent on their current planet, had kept them both preoccupied enough so that they focused more on survival. 

Their current position reminded him of it all, back when things were simpler.


	6. Chapter 6

_"For the good of the empire!"_

_Gaz stood in the shadows of a large doorway, Zim on the other side. He breathed quickly, and quietly, like a cat. The large, rounded arch was enough to provide them both with a place to hide and a place to easily eavesdrop. She craned her neck in order to peek around the length of the frame. She saw Irkens, their numbers reaching into what seemed to be the thousands, all squished into a still very large auditorium. The soldiers gathered around a circular raised platform in the center, small but still large enough to fit the two Irken Tallests._

_"Invader Zim must be annihilated!" Shouted Purple. The Irkens roared their loyalty, the sound bouncing off of the walls. Zim growled angrily, but he was drowned out by the noise._

__

"I wonder if we can find a body of water," Gaz wondered out loud, "you know, one that we don't have to dig up." 

Zim looked up from his workbench, where he had just been rewiring what looked to be a small motherboard. He gently set down a pair of thin tongs, relaxing from his previous rigid posture. She wondered when was the last time he had given himself a break; he had been working on that thing for what seemed like hours now. Gaz approached him, her hands snaking up to his shoulders, her thumbs rubbing small circles in stiff muscles. He sighed quietly, gazing toward a small computer screen that spelled out, in Irken, the logistics and location of their probe. 

"The environmental scanning locator will surely send us feedback if it finds water," Zim muttered, "and perhaps I can program it from here so that water is its first target."  
Gaz cracked a smile, "You mean the probe?"  
"A - a probe! It is not a probe!" He turned quickly to face her, sputtering his embarrassment. "A probe is used for - ugh, _never mind_ that."  
"Hey!" She protested when he turned back to face his work. She took hold on his shoulder and let out a small laugh. "What's a probe?" 

He bit his lip. In the dimmed light of their camp, she could faintly see his face turn a strange tone of green-ish brown. She never knew Irkens could blush; she supposed it was because she had never seen Zim do so before, and her close interactions with Irkens tended to be limited. His antennae stood at attention for a moment, then flattened out to each side of his head, twitching on occasion. She grinned impishly, knowing full well that he was embarrassed - he wasn't very hard to read, especially when he body reacted in such a visual way. 

"Probes are used for examining the.." His voice dropped significantly in volume, "the genitals, of specimen on a dissection table. To determine cause of death, and for study." 

"Oh! My god!" Gaz laughed loudly at that. She had heard of alien propaganda probing people, often leaving their victims thoroughly traumatized and confused (humans, that is). Never before, though, did she think it was actually true. "Wait, so those stories of people being probed in UFO's were true?"  
"I - err, I wouldn't expect it to be done via Irken instrumentation. Humans are most observed under Angrogena and Folic species." Zim sighed. "Irkens hardly made any room for Humans in their agenda, until now."  
"What do Irkens do with genital study?" She blurted out. 

Instantly, Gaz grew hot. The question had just left her mouth without seemingly any conscious thought. Her curiosity, though, was true. She had heard Zim mention in passing, once, that Irkens did not reproduce in the same correlation as Humans. She wasn't sure if human reproduction was unique to mankind, and that every other intergalactic species just had a very different way of having sex, or if Irkens just didn't do it at all. 

He told her that, very recently (recently, he meant, in the past fifty years or so), Irken reproduction had been faltering. The mass production of super soldiers was not cheap, and it cost much of their resources. Studying other races and how they copulate would, in hopes, give Irk an idea on how to create their smeets more efficiently. 

"Why not just do it, you know, the old way?" Gaz asked. "Or, do Irkens not function like that?"  
"We did," Zim responded, "but not anymore. Very few of us now retain the ability to naturally reproduce. Like me, it is often a mistake made within the Control Brains. Many modern Irkens have suppressors within their brains to reduce hormonal interaction."  
"So you're one of the few that still can?"  
"By mistake, yes." 

He seemed very quick to bring up the fact that he was labeled as a mistake. Gaz thought it was unfair to consider him less capable. He himself had dethroned two Tallests for the sake of making a point. Zim was far from defective. Just because he, as he had said, experienced hormones and stronger emotions. To her, that made him an even better soldier - a noble soldier. In all of her seventeens years of living, Gaz never let herself feel for anybody, but with Zim, she couldn't help but want to prove him wrong. 

"You," She jabbed a finger into his chest, "are not a mistake, Zim. In fact, I think your abnormality makes you a better soldier than any of those other Irkens."   
He only smiled softly at her, "Ah, but Gaz, I am no longer a soldier."  
  
Because, now, she was the only thing left for him to protect.


	7. Chapter 7

_"Dib, really, you're taking this too far," Gaz growled at him, "he isn't a threat anymore."_  
_"Why do you care, Gaz?" He sneered at her. In her eyes, he looked like a completely different person. A stranger. "He's ruined my life since he got here, he deserves this."  
"Childhood bullying? Seriously? If I recall, you did him even!" She shouted at him. "You're trying to deal with something much larger than just yourself, Dib! This is dangerous!" _

__

__

_Dib had stopped, throwing down a stack of papers onto the kitchen table. His eyes, once a soft and comforting brown, were narrowed and furious, and it was all aimed in her direction. His stepped forward tentatively, then with more confidence, until he was in front of her. Dib took hold of her upper arms, his fingernails digging into her skin - they'd surely leave bruises in their wake. He bent over, stooping to her height, until their noses touched. She tried to lean back, to regain some personal space, but she couldn't. Then, with an anger she had never seen him have before, Dib spit out at her,_

_"You were never part of this family, no wonder you'd abandon it so quickly."_

_With that, he let go of her, letting her drop to her knees on the kitchen floor. She refused to cry, not because of him. Her head shot up to meet him, standing over her, and she tried her best to match the ferocity in his eyes._  
_"What are you talking about, dumbass? I'm not abandoning anybody; as far as I'm concerned, Dad was the one who -"  
"He is not your Dad, and he never will be. And you, Gaz, are the reason he's dead." Dib spit on the floor, a spot just in front of where she sat - like she was nothing more than an animal. Now, the anger in her chest rose, throbbing in her veins and stinging her eyes. _

__

_He left to his room, leaving her alone. Gaz glared at the floor, hoping it would melt. She wanted everything in this house to melt, her brother included. Her not being part of the family? It had always just been the two of them, supporting each other in an empty house while their father worked for months at a time, their mother's whereabouts unknown._

_Then, it had all made sense - why she looked so different from her brother and father, why her personality didn't match up. It was why she never truly felt connected to her brother, no matter how much time she spent with him, and why her father never bothered to look her in the eye, even on the rare occasion he came home. It had all came to her suddenly, like a punch in the stomach, when she found adoption papers in front of her door the next morning._

_Despite her head reeling with questions, she knew one thing for certain: they had never been family to begin with._

"Ah!" Zim had suddenly whooped one morning. The suns of the planet had barely made it over the horizon, and Gaz was just getting used to the length of the days and nights. She cracked open one eye, blearily watching her companion type furiously at the computer attached to the monitor. The front entrance to their camp had remained open, letting in a chill so often brought on by the night, allowing for the golden rays of sun to spill into the room. Their base camp had been small, only one room, and most likely about only five feet of walking space. There was one, large cot that served as a bed, Zim's workbench, piles of scrap and crafted items in chests up against the walls, and the computer monitor. The fire pit in the middle made it seem even smaller. 

"What is it?" Gaz asked, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Zim's antennae shot up at the sound of her voice, and turned to greet her with a smile, his zipper-like teeth and sharp canines gleaming in the sunlight.  
"We've located water!" He said. "For you! This also allows me the opportunity to search for micro-organisms; if this planet has that, at least, then there's a chance plant life exists. And if plant life exists, well, then that's an open gate for other forms of life as well."  
"Oh, neat," She responded to him. She shrugged off the thin sheet that served as a blanket. "So where is it?"  
"Just east of here, about an hour's walk." He turned to rummage through a chest. "We can go observe it now. I'll take notes, and you can enjoy yourself."

And so they went. Zim had insisted on arming the both of them with some weapons; they both had a blaster each, and Zim carried something that looked like an advanced, foreign version of a harpoon on his back. Gaz carried along a small, compact canteen, which he told her would eventually transform into a larger one once she opened in completely. As they walked, she grew excited to submerge herself completely in water again. She hadn't had a proper bath in a long time. 

It was very obvious when they stumbled across it; in front of them lay a huge body of water, so large Gaz could hardly see the other side (but Zim could, and he confirmed that it was there). A thick cloud of fog settled over the water, but upon closer inspection, Gaz found that it was, in fact, steam, indicating that it was a heated pool. Before either of them could get much closer, Zim instructed that the two of them cover their mouths with the front of their clothing, before pulling a gauge-like device from a small satchel tied around his hip. Protected by his boots, he waded about ankle-deep in the lake, submerging the device into the liquid until it beeped. He squinted at the small screen on the front of it, before nodding and letting the cloth in front of his mouth and nose to drop back to his chest. 

"For safety, I wanted to make sure it was water, and not any other poisonous gas or element." He nodded in her direction. "And, it's water. There must be volcanic activity on this planet. Let's hope they aren't necessarily active within our proximity." 

Gaz had waded into the water slowly. Zim observed her, noting she had only removed her pants this time. Once she was about chest-deep, she sunk lower, allowing her shoulders to become submerged. She sighed in response, causing a tingle to run down his antennae. He swallowed thickly, returning to the shore and shaking the feeling that had begun to settle in the pit of his stomach. As he wandered across the shoreline, he noticed tiny green and purple leaves poking through the sand and rocks. 

Curious, he bent down, digging through the sand with a single finger, finding that plant life had, indeed, begun to blossom along the water. Not wanting to disturb the evolution, he pressed the sand back into the exposed roots of the tiny plants, and stood once again. He removed a vial from his satchel pocket, submerging it into the shallow water by the shore in order to obtain a sample.

"It sucks you don't have your glue, Zim!" Gaz shouted at him. "It's so nice in here!" 

He audibly gulped at the side of her. Her hair had been soaked, and it slicked itself back, fully revealing her face. The water had washed away the dirt, revealing her slightly tanned cheeks and shoulders. When she stood fully, her breasts could be seen from behind the wet cloth of her shirt. Zim looked down immediately, squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then looked back up at her.

"Maybe, next time we come back, I will look through the ship's supplies to see if I have some left over." He replied to her. She only smiled and disappeared under the water. 

Zim wasn't sure if he even wanted to, but he supposed that it'd be a new experience. Of course, with Irkens never having to rely on water, he never learned how to swim, but Gaz seemed to be enjoying herself just by standing in the water. Something fluttered in his chest, thinking about her in the water like that. For a moment, he thought something was physically wrong with him. A quick, internal systems check from his PAK assured he was fine. 

Another look at her, a vixen in the water, assured him that he was indeed very, very fine.


	8. Chapter 8

_It was in the middle of August when it happened._

_Gaz's presence in the Membrane household had dwindled steadily since that past spring, ever since Dib had exposed to her the truth of her adoption. She had often found herself in front of Zim's base, the gnomes in the front yard so accustomed to her being there that they had simply turned away the heads of their lasers when she arrived. Dib, of course, wasn't aware of her whereabouts, but it seemed he wasn't making any sort of effort to find out in the first place. He must've known, Gaz rationalized with herself later on, where she was going, because Gaz Membrane didn't have friends to hang out with, and she had been the one to defend Zim in the first place. She decided, though, that if he wasn't going to treat her like a sister, then she'd burn the thread of him calling himself her brother, too._

_GIR was noisy. She sat in a comfortable rotating chair next to Zim, both of them basking in the otherworldly green glow that came from various devices down in his labs. The SIR unit ran around in the open space behind them, screaming about stupid things like tacos and puppies, all of which Gaz had learned to tune out since her increased attendance at Zim's base. Bored, and quite irritated with GIR's nonstop shouting, she threw her socked feet up to rest on Zim's lap, giving herself some more room in order to lean back in her chair and relax. Or, try to._

_Zim looked up at her suddenly, not used to anybody or anything else touching him, and was about to open his mouth to say something when the entire base shook, right down the wires. An overhead panel that had clung to the ceiling came crashing down to the floor, startling them both even further. They jumped up from their seats, inspecting the room for further damage, before turning to one another in confusion. Another rumble nearly took them down again, except Zim managed to steady himself, grabbing onto Gaz's wrist in order to keep her upright with him._

_"What was that?" She asked as the rumbling subsided. "An earthquake?"  
"No," Zim narrowed his eyes, trying to rule out the possibilities, "that was from above. Come, Gaz, to the elevator." _

_They squeezed into the small space, GIR at their feet, and the small pod traveled through the uppermost levels of his base, until they reached the main floor above-ground. Some items had been knocked over during the quake, such as the chairs in the kitchen, but little else had been disturbed. Outside, dogs barked and car alarms blared, the only other evidence that indicated that anything had happened. Zim walked briskly over to the front door, yanking it open and stepping outside. He took a couple steps out into the front lawn, his eyes widened and antennae flattened against his head. His mouth fell open slightly in shock, prompting Gaz to follow him outside. She joined him out in the front lawn, going dizzy at the sight that met her in the sky._

_Above them, the Irken Armada had arrived._

"I don't understand the point of these useless human games!" Zim roared, slapping down a ten of spades on the ground in front of her.  
"You're just upset you're really bad at Go Fish." She snickered. She could understand his frustration, though - Irkens didn't have card games, it was no surprise to her that he was positively miserable at it. She set her deck of cards down, showing the pairs she had won, before standing. "Come on, Zim. Let's do something else."  
"Something else?" He copied her actions, all playing cards now abandoned on the floor of their new base.

When Zim had _finally_ gathered enough materials to build a proper living quarters, he avidly showed his excitement in floor planning and - surprisingly - interior decorating. She couldn't blame him; she had gotten sick of their tiny, one-room, almost tent-like structure. The knowledge that she'd be protected by sturdy walls helped her sleep at night. 

The base was nothing out of the ordinary, except Zim had placed it within view of the lake they found earlier. She thought it looked like some sort of enlarged, mechanical-based hobbit-house. It was dome shaped, but still large, with smaller, connecting domes that served as rooms. Beneath it, under the layers of dirt and rock, sat two labs, for Zim's tinkering and inventing. There was a small medical bay, and a kitchen(Gaz had blurted out, a week or two ago, that she once had an aunt who cooked marvelously, and that she wanted to learn how to do the same one day). 

"Yeah, something else," Gaz said to him. There was no television, or any stores to go to, so she looked around the base with her hands on her hips, searching, "there doesn't seem to be much on this planet, does there?" 

Zim cringed. He felt a hurl of guilt when she had said that, thinking she must have missed the various things to do back on Earth. Even if it was almost nighttime in their current location, Earth still had a variety of commercial entertainment available once the sun set. "Eh, I suppose we can turn to settling in for the night, Gaz. We have individual rations of food in storage that need transfer, and the rooms.." 

The pair decided that it was best to stop dillydallying. Zim was right, the base still needed to be furnished before they set in for the night. Furniture wise, their selection was limited, but the rest of the base soon turned to show that yes, it did hold living inhabitants. Gaz smiled at the sight of it; it was home, and it was risen from the hands of her companion, making it seem all the more welcoming. She decided to look over at him, who was organizing some items in a nearby corner. 

Back on Earth, they had developed a bond that had remained unlabeled at the time. It was in the midst of a war, and so she hadn't invested as much time into furthering their friendship - it sort of just happened on its own, without her coaxing. She knew that between Zim and herself, there had been some sort of emotional attachment. How strong that attachment was, she wasn't sure. Even since their arrival on this planet, her relationship with him had been limited to touching, and that was it. During nights, when she was half-awake and Zim was quietly resting, she sometimes thought back to their kiss shared back on Earth, in the protection of his base, where it had felt like a completely different world, a world where war didn't exist. Now, they had an entire world to themselves, yet she still felt unsure as to how to go about things. She sometimes wished he knew the cues, or at least let instinct guide him, so she didn't feel weird when trying to get his attention. _He also comes from a society where this is frowned upon,_ she told herself, _you have to be the one to break that boundary._

They had eventually retired to their own respective rooms later on that night. She had plans on trying to sleep, while Zim had said he wanted to try and build a clock. The door to her room lifted sideways, a circular cap that opened and shut so quietly she could hardly hear it. The lights flickered on, and she saw a mostly empty room with a decently sized bed. Instantly, she crawled under the covers as the entrance shut itself up again. It left her in complete darkness, with nothing but the workings of the base and Zim's distant sounds of his tinkering to lull her to sleep. She shut her eyes, hoping to relax. 

When nothing happened, she opened her eyes again. The complete darkness of her room unnerved her; usually, when she had fallen asleep, there was an artificial fire pit, with Zim working on the other side. Now, she felt trapped in that room, and utterly lonely. 

Quietly, she dug herself out from the sheets before fumbling in the dark, looking for a small button that worked the door, something she'd spotted earlier. Her hands roamed the walls blindly until accidentally pressing themselves over the small panel. The door lifted, and her eyes were met with the dim light of the base again. She stepped out into the main living space. She had never actually located Zim's room, so she wandered the expanse of their living quarters. Her eyes scanned the area, noting the little knick-knacks and devices that belonged to various inventions and technologies she had no idea how to work yet. She told herself one day she'd learn how, once Zim had some time. 

She ended up in front of a door that was identical to hers, and since she hadn't seen this particular room yet, she deduced that it must've been his. Her hand glided over the center of it. The door glowed a faint green where it had sensed her hand, if only for a second, before lifting to the side and allowing her entry. Inside, Zim instantly looked up at her in confusion. 

"Gaz?" He asked, setting down the small device he had previously been working with. "Are your quarters missing something important? Is there a malfunction anywhere? I can go and -"  
"I'm fine," Gaz spoke quickly, "and the room is fine. I'm just - well -" 

Her face grew hot. She didn't exactly want to say that she had trouble sleeping without him. She had too much pride. Back on Earth, she had lived all her life in solitude, something she had chosen for herself at an early age. When she had first started visiting Zim, Gaz made it a point to tell herself that it was strictly for going against Dib. When nothing happened, those visits turned into something she took within her leisure. Then, she had kissed him one night, and she suddenly found herself not wanting to be alone. 

"I just can't sleep there, alright?" She grumbled, sitting on his bed and staring at her hands. Even being in that room, it had instantly made her feel better. "It's fine, pretend I'm not here."  
Zim stared at her for a moment, before moving to sit beside her, "Gaz is scared, yes?"  
"No! No - no, not scared!" Gaz sputtered, "I'm not - _no_."

He knew she was, he could easily tell, but Zim knew better than to say this. Gaz feared for her own reputation, despite them being the only two intelligent beings on this planet. Sitting next to her, Zim could smell her wholly, causing the base of his antennae to feel fuzzy. Here, without the overuse of strongly scented bath products and perfumes, her natural scent was stronger, causing hidden, primal urges to arise from within his PAK. Zim knew he shouldn't be sitting so close to her for this very reason, but something kept him glued firmly to her side. 

Zim looked over to her, watching the purple wisps of hair fall delicately over her face, "You can stay, Gaz. I was thinking of taking a break myself." 

At first, they laid stiffly beside one another. Gaz felt like a schoolgirl, a pathetically blushing maiden. She lied on her back, staring at the domed ceiling of the room, pretending to study the metal grooves and cracks in the architecture. She wanted so badly to turn her head and look over to her bedmate, but her head wouldn't budge. She scolded herself for being so awkward. Why had it seemed so natural back on Earth? 

Zim shouldn't have been laying on his back - that's where his PAK was. He slowly turned to rest on his side. His eyes focused on Gaz, who was lying frozen next to him. He took a small breath before cupping one hand on the opposite side of her face, forcing her to look at him. Her eyes widened for a moment, but she relaxed a second after. She turned to face him, her hand gripping his wrist. Slowly, she inched closer to him (she was obviously trying to make it subtle, and it was clear that her efforts weren't working, so she just told herself _fuck it_ ), until her nose brushed against his face. He tensed involuntarily, cursing himself when he felt her do the same. 

They stayed still, neither one of them not wanting to move. Gaz's eyes began fluttering shut. Quietly, Zim sighed, closing his own eyes. He didn't sleep, instead relaxing to her steady breathing as she slumbered. When he felt she was deep enough into sleep, he pressed his lips against the crown of her hair, leaning into her further. It had been a while since he had let himself indulge in something like this; rarely did he take a moment to relax, to leave himself in such a vulnerable position. 

With Gaz, for some reason, it came easy.


	9. Chapter 9

_It was hot outside. She was seven, it was her birthday, and the Professor had given Dib instructions to take her to the store buy the newest GameSlave console with some money he'd left behind on the kitchen counter. They sat on the cement steps of their back door, their arms sticky with watermelon juice, their little fingers gripping the rind as they munched on their afternoon snack in the July sun. It was about a half hour's walk to the mall, and they'd decided it was best to eat some lunch before heading out._

_Overhead, the scheduled eclipse that Dib had been waiting for began to block out the sun. Her brother stood, staring up at the sun in wonderment. She remained seated, unamused, as her brother dropped his slice of watermelon. It fell to the dirt, the soil clinging to the pink flesh of it. Gaz watched as ants immediately took to the free food._

_"Gaz! It's happening!"_  
_"Careful, Dib," she grumbled, "keep starin' at the sun like that, Daddy said you'd go blind."  
He looked away only for a moment, his brown eyes flickering over to her then immediately back to the sky, "but I read on a Mysterious Mysteries magazine issue a while back - aliens come out during eclipses! Do you believe in aliens, Gaz?" _

__

__

_She didn't say anything, just continued to nibble on her watermelon slice. Gaz wasn't about to let her stupid brother ruin her good mood._

 

"Zim!" 

The alien nearly fell from his spot on his bench. The wire he had been carefully positioning so that it would fit perfectly into its counterpart slipped, and he cursed in his native tongue in frustration. He looked up at Gaz pointedly, who stood in the open doorway of their base. His eyes immediately wandered outside, catching on to what she had been yelling about. It was raining. 

They had camped out on their planet for about three months, and it hadn't rained once. Gaz hesitantly stuck her hand out under the downpour, before he could protest. Zim waited anxiously for a cry of pain; many planets often rained acid. He wouldn't be surprised if the one they were on did, too. After about thirty seconds, Gaz lurched forward, abandoning her post from the entrance of the base.

"Gaz! Wait! It could be -" Zim cried, scrambling to the doorway, but going no further. He watched as she stood in the rain, her hair quickly sticking to the nape of her neck. "Gaz! This is no time to be standing around! It could be dangerous!"  
"Relax, Zim," she rolled her eyes, looking at him from over her shoulder, "go find some glue and come out here with me!" 

He recoiled back, further underneath the safety of the roof. Despite the glue, Zim still hadn't ever grown quite fond of rain. He remembered Gaz mentioned in passing that she enjoyed it, and often played outside in muddy puddles as a child. He wondered idly what made her lean so toward what humans called 'bad weather', keeping in mind that Gaz tended to lean towards things most regular humans strayed away from. In his mind, she was ostrisizing herself that way. But then again, she always was one for solidarity, wasn't she? 

After their first visit to the lake, Zim had taken the time to search the compartments of his Voot for his remaining stash of glue. He had reminded himself countless times that he needed to come up with another source of protection from the rain, seeing as his current ration wouldn't last him forever. In the meantime, Zim had managed to create a sort of bath-like system, but in a way that just enough glue would be used in proportion to the size of his body, or preservation purposes. The tub he used, which looked like a bean-shaped capsule, was an in-ground installation in one of the back rooms. Zim made his way over, opening the door and cringing when his eyes met the surface of the still, white substance. Despite the usefulness of glue, he never enjoyed submerging himself in it. Tentatively, he stuck one boot in, and then the other. In a matter of a few seconds, he was shoulder-deep, his limbs moving slowly through the thick mass of it. Zim squeezed his eyes shut, sunk all the way down until he felt the tips of his antennae disappear under the surface, then promptly shot out from the tub. Some of the gooey ick slopped onto the floor, leaving behind a thin sheen of protection against the rain. 

"Augh," Zim clucked his tongue, "disgusting." 

He swore he'd never do this for anyone else.


	10. Chapter 10

_"You ignorant fool. That's all you humans are - ignorant and selfish."_

_They had somehow managed to procure restraints strong enough to keep him from escaping. He was hung so high the tips of his bare feet hardly touched the ground. His arms and back ached from being suspended from the ceiling. They had removed most of his clothes - they wanted to detail the outward appearance of his anatomy before they cut him open. Zim swallowed thickly at the concept._

_"Shut your mouth, Zim!" Dib jeered in his direction. He was taunting the alien, making it a point to stand as close as possible, pinching and flicking at his skin, knowing full well that Zim was restrained and could not hurt him. Dib removed a taser from his belt loop, pressing the button and watching the electricity buzz between the two tiny metal tongs. Dib laughed when Zim flinched, instinctively trying to move away. "What's wrong? Scared of a little zap?"_

_He pressed the head of the taser into Zim's abdomen. The alien lurched, his back arching as much as it could in a pathetic attempt to move his stomach away from the current. A hoarse cry erupted from his mouth against his will, bouncing off of the walls and echoing in the hallway._

_"I am not your enemy, Dib." Zim croaked after a few heavy breaths. "Don't engage in the war, your sister, Gaz - think of her, of the danger -"  
"She is not my sister!" He cried, pressing the taser against his hostage once more. Another shout filled the room. "She is a traitor, scheming with the likes of you!" _

_Dib kept the electricity running continuously against Zim's skin. Zim quivered and thrashed, feeling the buzz reach his PAK and stall his external wiring. His throat began to feel raw, but it seemed as if screaming was the only was to relieve some of the pain. It felt like his mind was turning to mush, his body going into overdrive due to the current running through his body. Suddenly, almost as quickly as it began, it stopped. Dib backed away, spitting in his face, leaving the room and allowing him to rest. Zim's body shook, his eyesight was bleary._

_He hung his head, wondering if the only thing left of him that Gaz would find in the end was his dead body._

 

Gaz had been moody. He always knew her temper was a force to reckon with, but lately she had been becoming increasingly agitated with menial tasks. A couple of days before, she swore loudly when she couldn't open a tin of parts he had asked her to retrieve, before stomping towards the room she had been given(but never really used, since she was mostly in his room) and promptly locking herself in. He had been left with the unopen jar, his mouth agape at her sudden rage. 

Her behavior continued to shift dramatically over the course of a week, when suddenly, Zim picked up on a change in her scent, especially when she ran through the base and threw herself into the water outside. The scent was sweet and tangy at the same time, something he hadn't picked up since they had arrived. He met her at the shoreline, observing her face grow pink. It wasn't until he saw the string of red emerging from between her legs underwater did he understand what was going on. 

Irken females, before his society had turned to creating super-soldiers, menstruated every three months, rather than every month. Although Zim was part of the newer generation and had never experienced menstruation before he arrived on Earth, he still had a solid idea on what it was and how it worked. He had completely forgotten that Gaz menstruated as well, especially since they had both been so preoccupied. 

He knew that the stress of the war and of their new life must've delayed her natural cycle. She had also lost weight from the excessive labor and restricted diet, which he determined must have also been a factor. 

"What do you suppose we use as a sanitary pad?" Zim asked dumbly when he confronted her. Immediately, her face contorted in her embarrassment and anger, as her hand promptly reached under the water and come back up with a decently sized rock. Gaz screeched and tossed it in his direction.  
"I don't know!" She yelled. "I forgot about it!"  
"Yes, Gaz, that is understandable, put you can't walk around leaking like tha -" He quickly dodged another oncoming missile. "Stop throwing rocks!"  
"Stop questioning me!"  
"You need something to help with the stain, Gaz!"  
"Shut up, Zim!"

He breathed in deeply, taking a step back. Zim knew that human females commonly grew quickly irate during this time. Gaz was no exception; she must have been embarrassed, and maybe even upset that she couldn't deal with the problem like how she normally would. Suddenly, Zim conjured an idea, running off into the base with the request that she wait for him. 

Zim had seen that human females typically use either sanitary napkins or what are called _tampons_ , both of which can be made from synthetic cotton and fibers. He also knew that one of Gaz's shirts was made of similar material. He had a cloning device in his lab, something he often used to copy parts he needed. Proud of his idea, he ripped a piece of her shirt and placed in in the machine, detailing the blueprints of the fibers of her shirt and sending them over to the copier. He quickly constructed a template, inputting the dimensions for what he assumed was her underwear - _wait, did she still wear underwear?_

She can't use a sanitary napkin without underwear. He created a second template of what he assumed to be the basic shape of a tampon as well. He'd create just one of each, offer her both, and whichever one she preferred, he'd make it bulk later. 

Gaz almost keeled over when he came back out of their base with both a pad and tampon in hand.


	11. Chapter 11

_"You're disgusting." he cringed, watching her teeth rip into the gooey cheese topping of her pizza, "I don't understand how you humans eat such garbage."_  
_"Don't your ex-leaders binge on donuts and soda?" Gaz quipped back, sending him a dirty look. "Also, Zim, insulting people doesn't help you earn friends."_  
_"Who says I need friends?" He said, crossing his arms and leaning back on the couch. Zim looked away, seemingly distant all of the sudden. "Irkens are solitary creatures."  
"With your lack of social skills, clearly." She scooped up some pepperoni pizza and shoved it in his face, the tip of the triangular slice prodding his lips. "Try it." _

____

__

_Zim made his revulsion apparent, but took it delicately in his hands anyway._

_He ended up really liking pizza_

She had been spending most of her days lately sitting outside, perched out on a nearby rock that was within view of the front entrance. Zim saw her whenever he passed the window in the main chamber, the back of her head a purple splotch against the seemingly barren landscape. He often wondered what she was doing - whenever she came back in, she'd revert to a quieter version of herself. He supposed she might have been thinking, but thinking is dangerous when you're alone. 

Usually she sat with her legs bent and her arms resting comfortably on her knees. She didn't move much, just stared out into the wide expanse of dirt and sand. Gaz was a statue, a beacon in the middle of nowhere. She could have been the halfway point for some wandering migrant, if there were any. He often thought about joining her, maybe just sitting out on that rock in her silent company. He sometimes found his thoughts wandering away from him. Perhaps she herself was the migrant. 

Perhaps they were all just lonely travelers. 

His eyes slowly moved away from the window, to the hollow carcass of a deactivated robot who stood guard from its top perch. Sometimes, Zim's fingers etched to repair it again - to hear the familiar, bubbly, and automated voice of something that had served as a comfort for him for so many years. His hand rose from its spot on the workbench, reaching towards the hard metal of the body. He grazed the back of his knuckles against the smoothness of it. 

Something in him snapped. His shoulders and back sagged, making him crumble further into his seat, like a plastic bag. Zim let his mouth hang open, a faint, shaky breath escaping from in between his lips. What were they _doing_? They had no fuel, dwindling supplies; they were so far from civilization, by the time anybody found them, all that would remain would probably be the remnants of their life on this planet. He was working himself day and night on supplies that did little to help their actual survival; he was just trying to make Gaz comfortable. The probe hadn't sent any signal of vegetation. Zim felt so very small, something he hadn't felt in a very long time. 

A panic rose from within him - that, maybe, they were going to die here. 

His eyes frantically surveyed the room, looking for both nothing and something. The room turned into a portrait of blurred lines and fuzzy colors. Then, in the midst of it, a blaster - it still worked. They hadn't used it since they arrived on the planet. It'd be quick - it'd be painless, for the both of them. Save them both the trouble of starving - 

"I've been doing some thinking, and I think that maybe we should build another probe. Or move out." 

Zim gasped audibly, turning around quickly to face the front entrance. Gaz stood there, clearly taken aback by his startle. Her eyebrows furrowed for a brief moment, showing her concern, before she regained her composure and stood tall once again. God, what was he thinking? Was he seriously thinking of - no, he wouldn't. He was supposed to keep them alive - to keep _her_ alive. The very thought of her, withering away from him - _stop_. Zim felt his chest contract, the panic rising in his stomach again. He imagined her, gaunt from malnutrition, or lying still and cold in the cot in his room. It'd be his fault, all his fault. Everything was his fault. No, no, he was supposed to protect her. Zim felt appalled in himself for letting himself think of what felt like a solution. No, he'd never do that to her - no, he couldn't. He couldn't! He - 

"Zim?"  
"Gaz!" He cried, almost falling out of his seat. He'd gotten lost in his thoughts again. "Gaz, I apologize - I just, I don't -"  
"Are you okay?" She asked, taking a step towards him. Zim looked up at her, wide and worried eyes showing more vulnerability than she had ever seen from him. He looked like a lost child in that moment, desperately trying to hold himself together. She knew he had been stressed. "You don't have to work so hard all the time. Take a break, Zim."  
"I cannot _'take a break'_!" He stood suddenly. The bench he had been sitting on fell over, toppling to the floor. "I cannot just let us die here! If I don't find a way to locate a source of food -"  
"The probe is out, and I like I said - maybe we should think about building a second. There's nothing wrong with covering more ground." Gaz said. Her hands ran up his arms and clasped themselves firmly on his shoulders. In the very least, she wanted him to feel grounded. She wanted to keep him happy. "Or we can relocate. We can start by circling the lake. You can teach me Irken engineering. You don't have to do this by yourself."  
"I don't want to lose you, Gaz," he said weakly, "it is my job to keep you safe. If you were - if something were to -"  
"Zim." 

Two cool palms cupped his jaw. His head was angled downwards so that he could see her clearly. She looked so reassuring, with a soft smile that never would've been visible to anybody else before. Her eyes seemed to warm and inviting, Zim leaned over and rested his head on her chest, letting exhaustion take him by the shoulders like an old friend. Her arms encircled him, drawing him nearer. Despite the awkward height difference, he relaxed against her. 

Gaz sighed as she felt his breathe travel across the expanse of her clavicle. She wanted to sleep so badly, but Zim needed her. She angled her head slight so that she could see the dip of his neck and curvature of his back, the small PAK jutting out from his spine. His antennae moved slightly, most likely picking up her movements subconsciously. One lifted and brushed across her chin, so she dipped her head and kissed it lightly. 

Zim purred for a moment, stiffening instantly when her lips came into contact. As silent heartbeats passed, Gaz cursed herself and her thoughtless action. He slowly rose from his position against her chest, soothing her qualms when she was met with a lazy smile. 

"I will keep you safe," he said.


	12. Chapter 12

_"How pathetic. A waste of a soldier."_  
_"A human? Why would anybody side with a human?"_  
_"He isn't worth the Empire's time - how low can an Irken get?"_  
_"Kill it, it isn't worth the air it's breathing."_  
_"Kill him, too, for going against the Tallests and betraying the Empire."_

__

_She listened to the hum of the low chatter around her, the seemingly endless mass of green Humanoids buzzing with their own accusations. The cold, sharp nozzle of the blaster was pressed uncomfortably against her temple. She was so nervous, she could feel herself sweating. As strong as she liked to consider herself to be, nobody enjoyed facing their own death. Her eyes looked out amongst the vast sea of Irkens, all staring at her; some were cowering in fear against the grain, some were snarling in her direction. Clawed fingers pointed in her direction, shouting convictions, screaming her seemingly valueless worth._

_It was her judgement day._

 

Her eyes blearily tried to focus on the dark ceiling above her. It was only the second time she's ever tried to sleep in her own room; it was terrifying being alone with your own thoughts, especially in the dark. She was essentially unwatched, unobserved; she was truly in her own element in that room, with no other audience but the walls that protected her. 

Gaz sighed, turning over one shoulder, then another, before restlessly throwing herself onto her back. Her muscles were too tense for sleep, her mind was too busy. It had been almost six months since her arrival on the barren planet she now called home. Everyday was just work and worry, or otherwise an unwanted occupation of her thoughts. She remembered lazy Sundays back on Earth, how she took them for granted. She used to never consider herself privileged by any means, but looking back on her old life, Gaz now knew for damn sure that she was. 

It started with her hands on her stomach. She'd grown thinner since her arrival here, the protrusion of her ribs more prominent against her fingers than they used to be a year ago. This was expected; when you're living on rations, you learn to survive on the bare minimum. Bloaty's on a Saturday night just wasn't an option anymore. The skin around her ribs was softer, though; it might have been from the lack of excess junk food in her diet, or maybe the water from the lake, but her skin was exceptionally clearer. It now had a healthy dose of sunlight, she supposed that could have played into it, too. Gaz looked at this as a positive of living life with the bare necessities. Her hands wandered lower, until they crossed the border of her waistband. Her fingers met the coarse mess of curls on her pubic bone.

_A negative,_ she thought bitterly, _is the lack of personal grooming._

She knew both men and women lived the hairier life back on Earth. She personally never understood it, she supposed maybe it was more natural. Her personal preference was to be bare of any hair she didn't need, and so the added texture under her armpits and in her pants was something she was still adjusting to. She told herself that if she could bring with her any one singular item from back home, it'd be a razor, screw shaving cream. 

Her fingernails dug through the hair and scratched the skin underneath, hoping to remember the smoothness of it. She could always make a blade, she figured. Her fingers stroked the area, delving down to feel the lips between her legs. She immediately froze. 

Gaz hadn't felt the pleasure of her own fingers in a long time. She was always occupied with something, plus the factor of literally living with an alien didn't help. Sometimes she hoped their interactions would grow to be more intimate than they are now - they had a whole fucking planet to themselves, there was really no need to privacy - despite the obvious stunt in his social skills. His species didn't typically encourage the blossoming of friendships, and almost outright outlawed anything beyond that. Zim had the capability, yes, but that didn't mean he knew how to. 

Her fingers remained still, almost cold and foreign to the touch. The temptation was there - oh god, it was simmering just beneath the surface - and she knew it'd probably help her de-stress tremendously. It'd been so long, though, it almost felt wrong to do so. Experimentally, she shifted a finger - just enough so that it brushed against the right spot ever so slightly - and gasped when it all came back to her. The electrifying buzz in her legs, the warmth building in her abdomen, or the stars blinding her behind her eyelids as she squeezed her eyes shut tight and clenched her toes. Her fingers were moving on their own accord, her own helpful guide towards oblivion. Her mouth hung open and her tongue glided across her teeth and lips. She was so close. So, so clo -

"Gaz? Are you -" 

Light flooded the room. Immediately, her eyes shot open and she pulled her hand away. Gaz arose from her spot quickly, looking at his silhouette with wild eyes, her brain reacting before she could really process what happened. Zim stood in the doorway, looking both slightly uncomfortable and confused. Immediately, the embarrassment and disgust she had for herself started to show. She could feel her face warming, and she knew by the change in his expression that he knew she was doing something private. Gaz wanted to tell him to get out, to leave her alone, to knock first, but her mouth opened and no voice was strong enough to overcome her humiliation and speak up. 

"I -" Zim stammered, "I was worried because I heard you whimpering, it sounded like another one of your nightmares, or like you were in -"  
"I'm fine." Gaz croaked. Her voice sounded strange, even to her.  
"I just wanted to check and see if you were okay and -"  
"It was nothing."

There was silence in between the two of them. Gaz stared at the ground, feeling like a child after being caught stealing. She could tell he was looking at her, she could feel the intense gaze observing her every move. Half of her wanted to demand he come in and finish what she started, but the logical side of her knew that was a ridiculous notion. This wasn't some teenage romance flick, and they would end up both sitting on her bed, embarrassed and uncomfortable. _Fuck._

"I am sorry for intruding." Zim spoke finally. "I wish I could - I -"  
"Zim," she looked up at him sympathetically, "it's okay." 

Then he shut the door, leaving her in darkness. Gaz buried her face in her hands, and cried.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the very few of you who read these, I apologize for my absence. College and work life are both very preoccupying, so it's hard to just sit down and write sometimes. I'm back again with another chapter, and will also try and update my other stories as well. Thank you for sticking around.

_When their father died, it was a fight to say who was allowed at his funeral and who wasn't. All of his colleagues fought to be of attendance, and with Dib making his way up the corporal ladder of Membrane Industries, he gave the exception to more than a couple of them. Gaz, on the other hand, fought for their privacy as a family, because the last thing she wanted when looking at her father's face for the very last time was to deal with photography and scientific spectacle._

_The funeral was the opposite of intimate. She thought she could have allowed the opportunity to let herself cry, just once. She bit her lip in anger and watched them close the casket, her father being lowered into the dirt as Dib spoke about work and future projects during almost the entirety of it. When it was over, she was the last to leave, just so she could have one last quiet moment._

_It was the last time she had ever been back to that cemetery._

It's quiet, aside from the melodic clanging of Zim doing work inside. They both had been working all day, as per usual. When he noticed her weary eyes, her head drooping from utter exhaustion, he told her that she could stop for the night. She was thankful, although she felt guilty for leaving him to do the rest. When she managed to drag her body to the nearest bed, she found that despite her tiredness, she couldn't bring herself to sleep. Gaz sat up, disgruntled, and sneaked out the back door to get some fresh air.

It's dark. She can't see very far ahead of her, but that's okay - she had no plans of straying very far. The dark has always scared her; as a child she liked to pretend she was brave and that she was above it all. The darkness couldn't hurt her, after all. Maybe that's why she still likes to act like she'd prefer it over anything else, because she knew that if she let her facade fall even a little bit, she'd revert back to the scared little girl she used to be. People would notice, they'd point at her and laugh. _"Look at her,"_ they'd say, _"afraid. Only children are afraid."_

Out here, there was nobody to judge her. Out here, there was just darkness, and she can be afraid. Sometimes all she wanted to be was afraid, because it reminded her that there was something outside of her fear, a comfort she can look forward to. It's very easy to forget about little things like that, things that make you feel safe without even you realizing it. A soft blanket, a familiar smell, the arms of a loved one. Gaz wanders forwards a few steps, into the dark, and tries to remember the feeling of her father's coat. What was it made of again? It felt almost rough, she thinks, _or did it feel soft? I don't remember anymore._

She shuts her eyes. The darkness comes alive at that point. She can almost see it, the outlines of the terrifying creatures her mind makes her believe live in the dark. They are circling her, taunting her. _We're coming_ , she can hear them say. _We're coming to get you._ In her mind's eye, she can see herself - the small, purple-haired child that cried when the lights were off. So vulnerable, so weak, she was so tiny back then. She feels a whiff of something travel across the back of her neck, the child within her screams that it's a monster. It's telling her to run. 

_Remember his coat. What did it feel like, Gaz? When you hugged him. You ran your fingers across the expanse of the fabric, it had little grooves of softness. It was bumpy. It was corduroy, wasn't it? It was corduroy._

Gaz can feel herself crying, because yes, it was corduroy. Here in the darkness, she can remember her comforts now. The feeling of her father's jacket when he came home from work. That jacket was twenty million light years away. She will never feel that coat again. Gaz wonders if the darkness knows this, if it knows that she no longer has that comfort to go back to. She is alone out there, in the empty landscape. _Daddy?_ whispers the child, but Gaz has to tell her that her daddy cannot help her now. Daddy is long, long gone.

It's so, so dark. Where are the stars? Why is she alone? She can feel something a couple feet to her right. It's breathing, it's waiting to get her. She can feel the bubble of fear growing in her throat. Oh, god, she wants to cry, wants to screa - 

"Gaz?"

She lets out a gasp and opens her eyes. Ahead of her, she can see the light spilling from the back door, her shadow reminding her where she is and that she's real. Gaz takes in heavy breaths of air, trying to ground herself. Her fingertips tingle with her father's memory, but the feeling is fading fast. She tries to grasp it and hold onto it, but it's fleeting. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she wishes that she had taken the time to find that jacket. She wishes she could hold onto that memory, but she remembers what Zim said about holding onto fragments from the past. 

She feels a hand on her shoulder and she almost lets out a scream. She had forgotten where she was for a moment, who's here with her. Zim looks at her with worried eyes, so for once she gives in and hugs him. She hugs him so hard she wonders if she's hurting him. Gaz can feel him bringing her closer, can feel his arms around her back. She feels almost like a child again, in her father's arms, but she forces herself to remember that it is Zim now, that her father is gone. Zim is her comfort now, because she feels safe here with him. 

"Promise me that you'll always be here," Gaz whispers. She also knows that it's a bad thing to make promises, because in the end, neither of them can control fate. "Promise."  
"I -" Zim falters. "I promise." 

She looks up at him, examines how his green skin looks in the yellow light breaking the darkness outside. There's a scar the size of her thumb on his cheek, something he sustained from the war. She presses her lips against it, feeling his raised flesh against hers. Gaz doesn't pull away, just keeps her lips there, because she knows that if she does then that will be the end of their exchange, and she doesn't want that. She wants him to know what she wants (she tells herself that that's selfish, to expect him to just _know_. He's so hardworking, so diligent, and yet she expects more from him), she wants him to kiss her back and _understand_. 

Zim stays still. He lets himself close his eyes, concentrating on the warmth spreading through his cheeks from her touch. He wasn't exactly sure what she was doing out here, but clearly she was in some sort of emotional state due to how she's acting. His mind paints the image of her, pale and scared, with wide eyes looking up at him as if he were coming to kill her. Zim hugs her back as tight as he can, because he hates that look on her face, and he hopes he never has to see it again. 

When they pull away from one another, Zim takes her hand and leads her back inside. As the door shuts behind her, she looks back into the darkness and sees the face of her father. He looks solemn, as if waiting for her, before disappearing behind the pane of metal and wood.


End file.
